“Inclement political weather rocked President Obama and his party this summer. Falling poll numbers and growing voter misgivings open the door for big Republican gains in next year’s midterm elections.

But more storm clouds gather. With Democrats controlling the White House and Congress, the GOP can now use voter distrust of unified party control (the same party in charge of the presidency and Congress) as a tool to make major gains in next year’s elections–a political weapon both parties could only unsheathe irregularly over the past half century.

Why are voters choosing to neuter a political party after it consolidates power? “Policy balancing” is part of the explanation, according to Fiorina. Does this mean voters say something like, “I voted for a Democrat for president, so now I’ll choose a Republican to balance things out.” Probably not. He believes voters engage in something a little less premeditated. “While not consciously choosing divided government, people may have a vague appreciation of the overall picture that plays some role in how they vote. People could be voting as if they are making conscious choices to divide government even if their individual decisions are well below the conscious level,” Fiorina writes.”

Morris Fiorina is a political scientist that wrote the definitive text on Divided Government, titled appropriately enough – “Divided Government“. His comment in this piece goes directly to the raison d’être for my blog. To seek an answer to this never-ending question – “Rather than trusting the partisan balancing choice to a subconscious impulse, would we not be much better off if a few percentage of the electorate simply voted consciously for divided government?” And to promote that divided government voting heuristic.

“Calibrating the balance between the state and the free enterprise system is a delicate business, which is why the “big” and “small” government parties tend to take turns in power, so they can absorb and fine tune one another’s achievements, and undo each other’s mistakes. When the out-party wins power, it is given a mandate to tweak the controls and make a slight change in the country’s direction, the key words being “slight change” and “tweak.” Confronted with excess, the country enforces its own equilibrium, as when the Republican Congress crashed into Bill Clinton, frustrating both, but pleasing the country, creating welfare reform and a roaring economy. Divided government is a substitute for a conservative temperament, which is why it is frequently popular. The way things are going, it may shortly be with us again.”

While the commentariat’s condescension is almost comical, the whole evil-or-stupid explanation misses the elephant in Obama’s room: Americans of all stripes, it turns out, aren’t very keen about the government barging into their lives.”

A side benefit of watching the undead specter of divided government haunt the media again – We are no longer hearing about how the United States is really a “center-left” country.

It may be a bit early for these proclamations and conclusions. We are still more than a year away from the midterms. I still think it will take until 2012 to get there, but when Chris Dodd, Arlen Specter, and Harry Reid are all in trouble, we can safely say that divided government is rising from the grave.

4 Responses to “Divided Government rises from the grave.”

…..but when Chris Dodd, Arlen Specter, and Harry Reid are all in trouble, we can safely say that divided government is rising from the grave.

Or we could say that Chris Dodd is a crook in the pocket of big insurance and mortgagers, Arlen Specter is a Republican who was going to be defeated no matter which party he switched to, and Harry Reid is an incompetent boob who couldn’t corral his party and push through legislation commending honor roll students.

If the senate or house swings one way or another, it won’t be because the people want divided government–they want governmnet that does something, anything, other than sitting on its hands and watching Rome burn. The Dems have this one change to get it right and they are too cowardly to even attempt anything.

agree with gerryf — there’s nothing divided about a a two-party system where one hand washes the other in gerrymandered clubhouse controlled partisan politics. The real division is between the American people and our big party-controlled legislators. The more regular folks come together to debate and dialogue amongst ourselves, the more real reform and real progress we will see.

[…] am thankful that as we turn our eyes to the 2010 midterms, the prospect for and value of divided government is once again getting its due from the political chattering class, and there is hope for divided government and […]

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